Harlequins lock James Horwill should face a short stint on the sidelines owing to the gruesome compound fracture of his finger suffered in Sunday’s 25-6 defeat at Leicester.

Former Australia captain Horwill asked physios to tape up his nasty finger injury so he could keep playing, immediately inking his name into rugby's hard-man annals. Stills of the horrific injury were quickly tweeted and duly went viral.

The 31-year-old had no option but to be withdrawn from the closing stages of the Aviva Premiership clash at Welford Road, and has since undergone corrective surgery.

Horwill’s humour has remained undimmed in light of the nasty blow, as he took to social media to offer an update on his recovery.

“Finger is looking normal again and all good!” tweeted Horwill. His message continued: “Thanks to Doc mike_hayton for seeing me on a Sunday. Appreciate all the messages. #COYQ”

Specialist hand and wrist surgeon Hayton is based in the north-west and was able to quickly carry out the procedures to repair Horwill’s awful-looking injury.

Television cameras picked up the extent of Horwill’s injury during Sunday’s Premiership encounter, leading to immediate messages of respect from fellow rugby stars on Twitter.

Former Leicester and England fly-half Andy Goode tweeted a picture of the injury with the message: "Fair play to JHorwill playing for Harlequins, hard as nails asking the physio to tape this up to play on!"

Horwill later quipped back: “Fair to say my days as a hand model may be over!”

Harlequins are continuing to monitor Horwill’s condition before determining when he can return to action.

New Zealand full-back Ben Smith suffered a similar injury in the All Blacks' 21-9 win over Ireland in Dublin on Saturday.

The 30-year-old was immediately led from the field for treatment, with All Blacks boss Steve Hansen quickly ruling him out of New Zealand's forthcoming Test clash with France this weekend.